Jacob Brennan has come a long way in the weightroom.
But he’s not afraid of long trips.
Brennan is a senior at Father Judge High School, and every day he joins a few friends to travel from their South Philly homes to attend the school in Holmesburg.
It’s a long ride up I-95, he’s right where he’s meant to be.
“I actually live near the stadiums, near the bridge in South Philadelphia,” Brennan said. “My friend, he’s also from South Philly, he was talking to the football coach at Judge and then my friend told me about Judge. That’s how I found out about it, and I looked into the school and it’s a great school, so I went there.
“He actually transferred, but there are a few of us who come up from South Philly every day. We all go to Judge and play football, too. So it’s a lot of fun.”
When he’s not racing back and forth from school, Brennan is tearing things up on the football field, where he became a starter at middle linebacker last year.
But he’s really put in the work since the season has ended. He’s noticed the difference, while his teammates and coaches have noticed the massive amount of weight he is moving in bench press, squat and others.
How about these numbers? He can bench press 275 pounds, squad 500 pounds, deadlift 595 pounds and power clean 255 pounds.
You don’t get better at football without putting in the work during the offseason, and Brennan has done just that.
“Sometimes my teammates will watch me lift and I’ll watch them lift and we all try to help each other,” Brennan said. “During the max out week, we all support each other. We get the gym flowing and the energy up and everyone gets pumped. If it’s a big max, we’ll gather and get the teammates energized.
“I work hard for my teammates. Now that I’m a senior and I hope to be a captain, I want to lead the younger kids that have the potential to be great and we have a lot of those kinds of players. I want to lead by example and show, I’m not the biggest kid, but I can move some weight. So I hope I can be inspirational to smaller guys who want to work hard.”
Brennan knows what it’s like to have to play bigger than what you are. In fact, pretty much any football player who has suited up for Father Judge over the past decade or two knows what that’s like.
Because Judge is in the Catholic League Red Division, and that means playing against insane competition.
Every season, the Crusaders know they have games against La Salle, St. Joe’s Prep, Roman Catholic and Archbishop Wood.
Those schools typically have some of the best football players in the area. La Salle and Prep alone are routinely in the top 25 in the nation.
That means those teams have linemen who can be a lot bigger than your typical teenager. And often times, if not always, Brennan is smaller than the guys blocking him. He’s not small in stature, weighing over 200 pounds, but the opponents? Those are some big dudes.
Brennan is ready.
And he’ll get a chance to prove it to the league when Judge starts the season. The Crusaders will be under the leadership of Ryan Nase, a 2002 Judge grad who came back to the school after leading Cheltenham, a program that had struggled for a long time, to the state championship game in three seasons.
Brennan doesn’t think Nase will have to wait that long this time.
“I think Coach Nase says it a lot, we can turn some heads,” Brennan said. “We have a lot of potential, a lot of seniors this year. I think we have more than 20 seniors. So hopefully with a lot of older kids and a lot of younger kids filtering in, we can shock some people.
“Some say it’s the hardest division in America and I can kind of see that. We play four teams in the top 150 in the nation. We have almost more of a motive to play these teams. We’re not playing bums ever, for lack of a better word. We play the best. It’s a challenge and it’s fun. Hopefully we beat a couple of those teams and shock some people.”
Brennan also wows in the classroom, where he’s ranked third in his class. He’s now starting to look toward the future.
“Looking into the military academies,” Brennan said. “I really like what happens after the school part, you’re set up for life. You become a man pretty much. I think that would be a great opportunity if I’m able to go to one of the academies. It all depends on where I go with what I’ll do. There’s different branches. It could be engineering. I was looking into the mathematical sides, finance or engineering.”
He has great reason to want to do that.
Brennan credits his family with making him who he is. His parents, sister Emily and brother Jimmy play a huge role in his life. And because of all they did for him, he wants to return the favor to his parents.
“That’s a goal, I want to get out out of college and be able to take care of them,” Brennan said. ”They’re not old, but my dad does construction and I don’t want him doing that. My mom works hard, too. I want to take care of my family for all they did for me.”
